Google Scholar Lets You Find U.S. Legal Opinions
By Anna Johnson on November 22nd, 2009The law book publishers, and free case law resource sites, are probably hating Google right now. Last week Google announced that Google Scholar – it’s search engine for academic and scholarly publications – will now allow people to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts.
Google says this addition to Google Scholar will empower the average citizen by helping them learn more about the laws applying to them. Yeah right.
Let’s be honest here: the average citizen won’t be poring over tedious judgments (however profound they may be). The main target market for this enhancement to Google Scholar (and it certainly is an enhancement) is U.S. attorneys, many of whom used to pay rather steep fees for case law… and can now get them for free!
Source: Anurag Acharya, “Finding the laws that govern us,” Google Blog, November 17, 2009
